"And then..." books

A few weeks ago, Matt and I went out for the very first time sans kids.  It was our anniversary and we  went out to dinner and after dinner we went and walked around the mall a little.  It was weird being without the kids.  I mean it had been 8 months since we had gone out without them.  And we did what any parents would do without the kids, we rode the escalators.  And we walked through super small isles.  And we went into stores that had a ton of breakable items.  You know, all the stuff we can't do when you have kids and a stroller.  

In one of the stores, I found this book called "And then..."  It of course peaked my interest and I had to open it.  

Basically it was a book with a bunch of cards in it that had the start to stories on them.  Each story ended with "and then..." and it was left to the kid to finish the story.  I fell in LOVE.  I knew instantly that this was something I needed in my life.  But when I looked at the price I was depressed.  $28.  SERIOUSLY??  I knew that it was something I could do myself (because honestly, what can't I do) and so my brain started going.  

The next day, I pulled out all my scrapbooking stuff, paints and supplies.  And then I went to Michaels where I bought the empty cardboard book.  I had so much fun writing the stories for each of my pages.  I decided to make each story correlate with the scrapbook page that I was using.  

Some stories refer to Captain D. R. Sowders or a grumpy old crab, or a princess Lucy.  I am pretty sure my kids are going to LOVE this present.

The great thing is that there is plenty of room in the empty book (that isn't so empty now) that I can add to it at any time.  And I plan to at least once a month.

Here is the book prior to painting it. I got this at Michael's for maybe $4 with a coupon.  

I decided on green and blue for my colors and set out painting

I tried playing around with doing some accents.  I don't know how I feel about it, but it works for now.

When the paint was dry I glued on the letters and a spaceship, because what interactive book is complete without a spaceship?  

 And then because Lucy is featured in some of the stories, I added a pink monkey in the inside cover.

I think eventually I will add some more little cut outs to it.  I am waiting to get my silhouette so I can create my own pictures.  I also think that I will do some neat way of adding their names to the back cover.  

This is one that I made for my friend's daughter for her first birthday: 

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